Monday, November 9, 2015

To answer this question up front – no, I don’t have a
motorcycle. But I couldn’t resist making the Style Arc Ziggi Biker Jacket. Kind
of an odd choice for my first Style Arc pattern but I’ve been fascinated with
this jacket. The draft on these patterns are legendary so I thought I would
give it a try. I’m definitely a convert! Just made the Issy knit top and love
that too!

This is what it looks like zipped up:

The back is pretty interesting. It has a peplum on it to give it some shaping and ease:

My wonderful Mother in Law gave me a very generous birthday
present and it was enough for the leather of this jacket. Actually I have a
whole lot left as I ordered an entire cow hide! I spoke with a very helpful
sales person at Hide House and she guided me to the correct leather. It’s
called Moto so you can guess it’s pretty thick. I did say I wanted something
suitable for winter – this sure is!

I have to say Style Arc is not really great on directions.
But there were lots of tutorials out there to assist me on this. This pattern
is not for the faint of heart!

As shown in the illustration I quilted the shoulder and
sleeve top. I thought that gave it an extra designer touch. The zippers came
from Wawak and the lining was a Bemberg Rayon Twill from Gorgeous Fabrics. It’s
a heavier coat weight lining.

There were a few tricks I learned about working with
leather. If you get unintended sewing holes of course they don’t just go away
with an iron like with a woven. As a matter of fact you can’t iron the stuff
anyway! I used Leather Weld to fill the holes and a leather conditioner to
blend them in. Worked quite well.

To get the seams to be easier to get through the machine I
used a skiving tool to shave the leather down in bulky places and a rubber mallet
to sort of pound seams down. My Bernina B790 got through the jacket with little
complaint.

Also adding the lining was a bit different. I couldn’t bag
it through the sleeve seam as I would just about any other jacket so I left the
opening at the hem and tacked it there.

This jacket has a total of five zippers on it. One for the
front, two for the pockets and two for the sleeves. That’s quite a bit of hardware.

Well, it was cold enough to wear it today and one of my
coworkers asked me if I road my bike in or drove a car! Of course I had to
answer “what bike”?